Page 68 - Studio International - November 1966

Art prices current

Growing interest in German painting by George Savage

The fashion for the School of Paris, too often which later merged with the Blaue Reiter group. this true of modern architecture, the influence of
un-critically accepted, two world wars and the Equally impressive is the work of Emil Nolde, the Bauhaus being especially strong in the United
repercussions of the Nazi regime (as disastrous for Karl Schmidt-Rotluff, and Erich Heckel, all mem- States. It can equally well be seen in the treatment
Germany as for the rest of the world), have com- bers of the Brücke. Oskar Kokoschka whose work of a good many modern buildings throughout the
bined to prevent twentieth-century German paint- has emerged as probably the most significant from world and in the design, for instance, of the so-
ing from achieving its potentiality in the world this period occupies a unique position which owes called 'Barcelona' chair of Mies van der Rohe.
market. Since 1945, however, its importance has much less to these early movements. Two outstanding German sculptors are Lehm-
come increasingly to be recognized internationally, The Blaue Reiter movement, represented princi- bruck and Barlach. The latter has been likened,
a movement which started in the United States pally by Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, and not without cause, to Riemenschneider and Veit
where a not inconsiderable proportion of the popu- Paul Klee, who are the most widely known, had its Stoss, while Lehmbruch was obviously influenced
lation is German in origin, and where many roots in medieval German mysticism, always a by Maillol.
artists and intellectuals fleeing from Nazi per- force in German art generally. Of these three There is space only to mention a few of the artists
secution found refuge. Kandinsky developed in the direction of abstrac- who have contributed to the development of
This process of recognition, although it began tion, striving to achieve in painting concepts more twentieth century German art. There are many
slowly, has become much more rapid in the last peculiar to the art of music. Kandinsky, in fact, more whose work is likely to be sought in the
five years or so. Exhibitions have been frequently may be said to have founded German abstraction future. It must be remembered, however, that so
held in London and New York, even of the work about 1911, but this was a plant which grew much was destroyed by the Nazis that the quantity
of painters who could be considered comparatively uneasily in German soil, where painters have been surviving is likely to be less than that existing from
minor in importance, and the available literature too much interested in the ramifications of the artists who were not subjected to this kind of
in English is also growing. This year, for instance, human mind to dispense entirely with a figurative systematic persecution. This will not be without
has seen the publication of a major work on the basis, and most abstract painters who are included its effect on price.
graphic art of Kirchner, and Dr Hodin's definitive in the German school were actually foreign in
biography of Oskar Kokoschka is due in the origin—Moholy-Nagy, for example, who was a
autumn. Much more has made its appearance in Hungarian. Sotheby
the States during the past few years, and auction Like Klee, Schlemmer, Baumeister, Feininger, and
prices have reflected this growing interest by a Moholy-Nagy, Kandinsky was associated with Lyonel Feininger
steady upward movement. Whether prices for the Walter Gropius in the founding of the Bauhaus in Hauser und Menschen (Houses and Men) 1909 0,200
best of modern German painting can eventually 1921, an organization which had as its aim the 21 1/2 x 18 in. Exhibited Hanover, Kestner Museum,
challenge those for the leaders of the French School formulation of a new kind of artistic consciousness. Feininger und Klee, 1920; Amsterdam, Stedelijk
remains to be seen, but in my opinion it is quite It owed something to Russian collectivism which Museum, Lyonel Feininger, 1955; Hamburg,
likely. was then attracting the attention of western intel- Kunsthalle, Feininger Gedachtnisausstellung, 1961.
The attention given to the Impressionists and the lectuals, although the flirtation with Communism, Reproduced by Hans Hess
Post-Impressionists in France has undoubtedly if modern trends in France are to be taken as a
tended to obscure parallel developments in Ger- guide, has now ended. Schlemmer was among the Erich Heckel
£1,000
many. We must remember, too, that the Germans first of the members of the Bauhaus to attract the Haus an der Förde (House on the Fiord)
have, as a nation, been more attracted to music, hostility of the Nazis when, in 1930, his murals at 32 x 37 in. Signed, dated 1922, inscribed on the
literature, and philosophy, although there were in Weimar were whitewashed. stretcher. Bought from the artist. To be included
the past some especially notable painters—Darer, As a political satirist of uncommon power Georg in the forthcoming Oeuvre Catalogue by Paul Vogt.
Grünewald, and Altdorfer are among the most Grosz, a fine draughtsman, has seldom been sur- Gelbe Dahlien (Yellow Dahlias) £1,750
obvious whose names spring to mind. passed in the present century, occupying a position 31 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. Signed, dated 1922, and signed,
The influence of the Impressionists in Germany is much the same as that of Daumier in the nine- inscribed, and dated on the reverse. Bought from
represented by the work of Max Liebermann, born teenth century. Otto Dix and Max Beckmann did the artist.
in 1847, who was followed by Max Slevogt and Lovis notable work along the same lines. These three
Corinth. The Salon du Champ de Mars in 1890 represent in painting the sort of thinking to be Wassily Kandinsky
had its counterpart in the Secession in Germany, found in dramatic literature in the work of Brecht. Sommer bei Murnau (Summer near Murnau) 1908 £5,000
which was founded in Munich four years later. Grosz attacked those who had made money from 12 1/2 x 15 3/4 in. Illustrated by Grohmann.
The Norwegian Edvard Munch had a parti- the war, the Schweinerei who spent money in mind-
cularly powerful influence on German painting at less self-aggrandisement. Otto Dix was less political Gustav Klimt
the beginning of the present century, when painters and more social in his approach, depicting the Frauenkopf (Woman's head) £120
became absorbed in the then current wave of dingy futility of the life of the common man whose 16+ x 111 in. Pencil, signed with initials and
psychological speculation for which the dramas of limited imagination hardly lifted him above the inscribed by Hermine Klimt. Drawn c. 1895.
£180
Strindberg and the theories of Freud and Jung level of the grosser animals. He is perhaps best Aktstudie (Nude)
helped to lay the foundation. This interest in turn known for his portrait of his parents, done in 1921 17 3/4 x 12 1/2 in. Pencil, inscribed by Hermine Klimt.
gave rise to the Expressionist movement and the and often reproduced, which is notable for its
beginning of the Brücke group in Dresden in 1905. intense realism. Beckmann's art is a protest against Franz Marc
Unlike Impressionism, the Expressionist move- the submergence of the individual in the machinery Knabe und Pferd (Boy and horse) £45
ment was a way of interpreting what the artist felt of the modern State, against the number instead 7 x 3 1/2 in. Black crayon.
rather than what he saw. It was an interpretation of the name, against the insolence of an organizing
of dreams carried a step further with the founding bureaucracy. Max Pechstein
of the Blaue Reiter School, to which the graphic If German painting has not in the past beer Berglandschaft (Mountain landscape)
£15(
work of Kirchner, one of the founders of the accorded its true importance in the field of modern Watercolour. Signed and dated 1925.
£19(
Brücke, contributed. Max Pechstein, connected art other kinds of German design have had a fat Segelboote (Sailing-boats)
with the Brücke, helped to found the New Secession reaching effect on modern styles. Particularly 19 x 24 in. Watercolour, signed and dated 1931.
274